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User blog:Deadcoder/Deadcoder's Reviews: Just In Time
This review is being done for intellectualism. Season and mid-season finales are interesting for TV. They can bring out both the best and worst of a series. Often, they must be extra dramatic, since the writers don't know if the work will be continued. Take season 1 of Glee, where the first sectionals episode was a mid-season finale, since the cast didn't know if the show would be continued. That was a high point. On the other hand, you have episodes like "These are the Voyages" from "Star Trek: Enterprise", which was so bad that it caused Trek to completely leave TV. Finales and mid-season finales can be both the best and the worst. At the time, "Just in Time" was written to be a sort-of finale, since Code Lyoko's writers weren't sure if the show would be continued beyond that. As a result, they wanted to make it better than usual. The series went on gloriously, but I'm here to examine this episode. My scoring system is simple: 10 - 0 with 10 being amazing, and 0 being Melanie Tran's acting. My review is, as usual, based on the English dub. Before I begin, I would like to point out that "DeactivateTheTowerJustInTime" had been done in almost every episode prior to this, and naming an episode as such was both funny and tacky. We shall begin. =The Review= The episode starts off with Jeremie in the Lab, working on Aelita's Materialization Program. We then get a cheapshot, where the viewer isn't actually shown the contents of the scanner. Minus one point for contrived cinematography! We then see Ulrich and Yumi fighting on the Kadic grounds, in an homage to Garage Kids. This, amazingly, contains no recycled footage from Garage kids. Point returned, barely. Odd is playing with Kiwi. In what would become a staple of the show, Yumi asks where Jeremie is, "since she's the commuter student," and Odd says that he's in the lab. They then all mock Jeremie's crush on Aelita. Yumi then kicks Ulrich during an assumed time out. Yumi, this is domestic violence, and it's the reason Ulrich didn't help you in "Contact." Jeremie shows up, and everyone already knows what he was working on. Since this is season 1, Jeremie is both the smart and sane one, and decided to only work on a single hair, rather than risk screwing up all of Aelita. He succeeded. The script in this scene is remarkably well-translated by season 1 standards. We find out that he materialized a single hair, "complete with creepy blushing." TO THE LAB! In the lab, we find out that Jeremie chose a single hair, because it was simple, but contained all of Aelita's DNA. From there, the characters stop listening, and realizing that the rest of them don't care, Jeremie stops being coherent and starts spewing what smart people recognize to be pointless gibberish. Yumi, Odd, and Ulrich are all lost in the faux-intelectual verbal diarrhea, and Aelita laughs at them not noticing that Jeremie's dialog is exactly that. Jeremie then plans to materialize the rest of Aelita, since they actually have a system that works now. Yumi starts to assert herself as the sane one, and asks if that's a good idea, since this is a whole person as opposed to one hair. Jeremie asserts "YOU DON'T GET TO BE SANE UNTIL SEASON 2!" and points out that they don't want to spend the rest of their lives fighting XANA, since he's the sane one in season 1. This is amusing because Yumi used the exact same line in the episode "Echoes," which though crappy, was the series finale, and is a further showing of how Jeremie was the sane one in season 1, before handing the reigns over to Yumi. Since right now, Jeremie is both the sane and smart one, Jeremie attempts to materialize Aelita. However, since this program is made in an abandoned Renault factory, the program breaks, proving Yumi right. Bonus point given, for making both Yumi and Jeremie sane this episode! I like this scene personally, since two characters had equally valid points, which is rare for arguments in TV, especially Kid's shows. "in most shows, neither character has a valid point." Cue the comic-relief from Odd, followed by a lunch scene. At lunch, both Yumi and Jeremie are both sane and smart, since having those two trade roles is a thing this episode. Meanwhile, Odd and Ulrich talk about Kiwi. This is a good microcosm of the show, where on one half, we have incredible sci-fi concepts, and on the other hand, we have roommates bickering. Sissi then shows up, commenting on Kiwi, pointing out that she won't reveal Kiwi to the principal, if they promise to be a little nicer to her. This is a Sissi scene at her finest; because yes, she's being obnoxious, but on the other hand, she has a good point and decent motivation. This is a rare trait in a secondary antagonist, so I like this little piece. Yumi then tells Sissi that if she reveals Kiwi, she'll, but then crushes a glass in her hand. Sissi exhibits sanity and leaves, while the rest of the characters know what broken glass "or sharp plastic" can do, and take her to the infirmary. Since the writers are going all-out in this episode, we actually see Yolanda doing the correct medical practice in the next scene. Yumi is well scripted as well. "blah blah blah, cheap shot at melanie tran, blah blah blah." Yumi and Ulrich comment about how crappy the cups are, and cue the creepy, Ulrich suggests that he's in for that if he irritates Yumi. Cue the sentimental music. This is where the scene died. THE WRITERS TRIED TO MAKE IMPLICATIONS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CUTE! Aww, they're holding hands... In what would also become a staple of the series, Jeremie makes a relationship-breaking-call. We then find out that despite his best efforts at trying to avoid it, by only using a single hair, Jeremie bugged up the rest of Aelita. We then find out that he screwed up the Annex Program. We then find out that's the program that gives Aelita the ability to deactivate towers. If she uses it, she'll be killed. Aelita shows up in the middle of that dialog. We encounter the Aeltia options! :0. Act suicidal and/or crazy. :1. Attack it with a long single note of angry music. :2. Have an argument with it. :3. Use Energy Fields. Option 3 is out, since this isn't season 3. option 0 is redundant, since her boyfriend is killing her, making suicide redundant. And this is neither Lyoko nor Glee, so 1 won't work. She tries to start an argument by encouraging Jeremie to program a debugged version, "Since encouraging Jeremie is guaranteed conflict! Genius!" Like the fangirls during the numerous male shirtless scenes in this show, Kiwi appears to make a high pitched noise that breaks glass. Since they've just had a close call, they send Kiwi to stay with Jeremie for a couple of days. From there, Jeremie and Aelita make a scene that is a complete mockery of telecomuting. From there, Kiwi uses the fangirl squeal, having progressed to making drywall crack. Wow, even I can't do that. Jeremie leaves, since the school is being more of a deathtrap than usual, "and because Kiwi is annoying." We then see Yumi talk in Ulrich's voice. This is either a script screwup, or bad drag. Either way, minus one point. Ulrich thinks that this might be XANA, and Odd thinks it might just be coincidence, since the school is usually a deathtrap, falling apart. My best guess is that it's both. This school has open containers of toxic waste, is falling apart, has a whole shed of rusty tools, can't be bothered to close a window in a wasp attack, etc. So I'll admit that both characters have a point. HOORAYZ! Good dialog! X.A.N.A. then launches an attack, complete with recycled footage. Since the school is run by idiots, Mr. Delmas looks at a hole in the ceiling, where structural beams have literally been warped and torn out, and comments that it doesn't look bad. This is why I mock french engineering. Jim is then a complete idiot and ham, but then the building starts to fall apart more than usual, and they evacuate the building. The characters agree in that the school is a deathtrap, and it's a xana attack. They then notice that Kiwi feels the attacks coming, since dogs can usually sense earthquakes. The school is then evacuated for being a deathtrap, and Odd goes to rescue Kiwi. We then get a pantie shot from Yumi. Odd is the responsible one, and not only gets Kiwi, but then thinks to rescue Milly and Tamiya. This scene is amazing. In season 1, the network forbade the writers from having an overall plot, but this scene still has character growth. In Teddygozilla, Milly and Tamiya acted like 6 and 8 year olds. In this scene, they act like bitchy 14 year olds. hooray for character growth! Since this is in France, the building starts to fall apart, horribly. Odd tells Yumi and Ulrich to go to Lyoko, and the building starts to fall apart, again. Every dog in Boulogne-Billancourt starts barking as the city starts to fall apart, because this is france. Ulrich goes to Lyoko, and Aelita sneaks up on him. Against all logic, Yumi arrives at the school instead of the factory. Sissi shows her hidden character depth, revealing that Odd, Kiwi, Milly, and Tamiya are all stuck inside, as she cries. This is one of the early cases of Sissi actually being a decent person inside, even though she can be obnoxious. Meanwhile, Odd knows that being on the third floor of a building that's falling apart is probably bad, so he gets himself and the girls to the second floor. On Lyoko, the Kankrelats finally show up, as does Yumi. Cue the season 1 virtualization music. The pulsations split paths. We get filler on Lyoko. I would like to point out that the Lyoko scenes were later recycled into "Code: Earth." Jeremie thinks he fixed the program, and is wrong. We encounter the Aelita options again: :0. Act suicidal and/or crazy. :1. Attack it with a long single note of angry music. :2. Have an argument with it. :3. Use Energy Fields. And Aelita concludes that suicide is the only option. Aelita comes to accept the futility very quickly in this scene, but the acting and writing still work with it. Ulrich is devirtualized getting Aelita to the tower, and Yumi gets her there, then gets devirtualized, her job done. She says goodbye to Jeremie, as she presses the panel that will save everyone else, but kill her. Jeremie tries not to cry as he activates the Return To The Past. Instead of the usual stupid "we've turned back time more than cher, now we joke about it" scene, the characters are depressed. Jeremie laments that he killed Aelita, just to get a single hair of her. But then Yumi remembers that the hair contains all of Aelita's genetic code, and since all of her memories are in genes, or in the computer, or whatever plot device, they can clone her. :Yumi: "Can't you just clone her from the hair?" :Jeremie: "I was planning to use the hair for something else" :Ulrich: "What on earth for?" :Jeremie, blushing: "I can't say" :Odd: "WHY?!" :Jeremie: "It would interfere with our Y-7 rating." :Yumi: "Jeremie, we got away with a bath scene, and an underwear scene in the first 20 minutes of the show, had more shower scenes than I can keep count of, and just made a joke about domestic violence. I seriously doubt that you can singleHANDedly kill our Y-7 rating." :Jeremie: "Oh for crying out loud, put the tube in the tube..." Annnddd Aelita's back. We finally get the turn-back-time-more-than-cher pun. Cue the credits. Review Summary The basic concept for this episode, XANA makes earthquakes to kill-em-all, is average for the series. However, the writers went far with the concept. We got the best of Sissi, Milly, and Tamiya. We got more drama than usual, an Aelita suicide scene that was actually good, and the episode was extremely good at carrying a sense of futility. That being said, the episode had its flaws. First, while they did it well here, this episode was when the writers realized that they could kill Aelita once every 5 episodes on average, for ratings. So while this episode wasn't blatant about it, minus one point for opening the can of worms of Aelita dying. Also, domestic violence isn't sweet, and shouldn't be played as romantic, so minus another half a point. Overall rating: 8.5/10. If the series had ended here, the writers would be able to look back on their work, and realize "we made something beautiful." Thankfully, it didn't end, and aside from a couple of minor flaws, they still succeeded in making an amazing mid-season finale. Category:Blog posts Category:Just in Time